The proposed consortium program between the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and Chicago State University (CSU) is designed to enhance the academic and investigative skills of under represented minority students enrolled in two Master's degree programs of CSU in order to improve their chances to be recruited into high quality Ph.D. programs in public health related biomedical sciences. The main focus of the program is to introduce the students to laboratory based research experience, enhance their academic skills and to provide a wide variety of research related experiences to build their self confidence that is necessary to undertake the rigors of a doctoral program. The focus of the program is the development of research skills by tutorials and mentoring as well as encouragement to undertake a rigorous master's level research problem. In addition to the normal self confidence building measures such as presentation of research results in a national conference and preparation of a peer reviewed publication, the program is designed to provide encouragement and help in obtaining independent pre-doctoral fellowships as well as research [unreadable] Assistantship in UIC or similar institutions. One of the unique aspects of the proposed program is to provide opportunities for research in biomedical sciences to students in mathematics and computer science master's degree programs and similarly provide opportunities for research in quantitative biomedical sciences to students in the traditional biology master's degree programs. CSU provides a rigorous training at masters level in biological and mathematical sciences to under represented minority students and providing the necessary research experience and confidence building measures at UIC should be highly successful in attracting minority students to doctoral study in public health related biomedical sciences. [unreadable] [unreadable]